What We’re Reading This Week Across the Web (Through Apr 25)

COMPUTING: HP’s Audacious Idea for Reinventing ComputersTom Simonite | Technology Review“Nearly three-quarters of the people in HP’s research division are now dedicated to a single project: a powerful new kind of computer known as ‘the Machine.’ It would fundamentally redesign the way computers function, making them simpler and more powerful. If it works, the project could dramatically upgrade everything from servers to smartphones—and save HP itself.”

WEARABLES: Digital tattoo lets you control devices with mind power aloneHal Hodson | New Scientist“The focus is on medical applications to begin with…but the fact that it can sit discreetly behind an ear means that all kinds of other applications are feasible. No one wants to wear a headset constantly, but applying a hidden electronic tattoo once every two weeks is more acceptable.”

SINGULARITY: What if one country achieves the singularity first?Zoltan Istvan | Motherboard“Once uploaded, would your digital self be able to interact with your biological self? Would one self be able to help the other? Or would laws force an either-or situation, where uploaded people’s biological selves must remain in cryogenically frozen states or even be eliminated altogether?”

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS: Breaking Moore’s Law? Does Not ComputeVirginia Postrel | Bloomberg View“This suggests, Sichel said in an interview, ‘that technological progress is much more rapid than you’d infer from the official statistics and that maybe there isn’t such a puzzle.’ Chips are still getting better, faster, and cheaper. Intel just changed the way it advertises their prices, and that change distorted the official numbers.”

MEDIA: Putting the Data Science into JournalismKeith Kirkpatrick | Communications of the ACM“‘There’s this whole realization that if news organizations are to attract an audience, it’s not going to be by spewing out the stuff that everyone else is spewing out,’ says David Herzog, a professor at the University of Missouri …’It is about giving the audience information that is unique, in-depth, that allows them to explore the data, and also engage with the audience.'”

SCIENCE FICTION: The Cities Science Fiction BuiltAdam Rothstein | Motherboard“In the city of the future, trains would rocket across overhead rails, airplanes would dive from the sky to land on the roof, and skyscrapers would stretch their sinewed limbs into the heavens to feel the hot pulse of radio waves beating across the planet. This artistic, but unbridled enthusiasm was the last century’s first expression of wholesale tech optimism.”